


Love Will Tear Us Apart

by Trawler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28047618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trawler/pseuds/Trawler
Summary: Even the strongest of relationships are prey to the ravages of time, and Hermione has had enough. Can Severus ever hope to win her back, or has realisation of what he has come too late?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Love Will Tear Us Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division.
> 
> This is part of a mostly unconnected series of short and long Snape/Hermione fics. They were written about fifteen years ago and posted elsewhere, but I've decided I want to keep all my fanfics together.

She was going to leave him. 

“Come to bed, love.” Hermione’s voice was low, without inflection. Tired. She was cocooned under a thick quilt, protected from the dungeon’s chill. But a chill of a different kind clung to her bones.

“Hmm?” 

“It’s nearly one.”

Severus let out a huff of breath as he looked at her. “I can tell the time, thank you. I’ve got to finish marking these papers.” He turned back to his work.

She was silent for a few minutes, dozing. Almost asleep. 

“Badly written essays on the uses of unicorn blood will still be there in the morning,” she yawned.

“I always finish the week’s marking on a Friday night,” he said, sounding cross. “I see no need to upset my routine over a little thing like the lateness of the hour.”

She didn’t bother trying to argue with him. He was set in his ways, dependent on his ‘routines’. But not, she thought sadly, on her.

She’d been foolish to even voice the question. Foolish to think he’d add his warmth to hers, even though he hadn’t come to bed before midnight for months. She’d learned to set her ambitions low. The lower they were, the less disappointment could crush her battered sense of hope. 

“I’ll just go to sleep, then. Goodnight, Severus.”

“Must you always state the obvious?” he snapped, not even raising his head from the desk.

A hot pulse of resentment surged through her. Angry words, sour as bile, danced on the tip of her tongue. She opened her mouth to blast him… but a sad, mistreated voice in her head made her close her mouth again.

_What’s the point?_ she thought. _He never listens to me anymore._

Closing her eyes, she remembered how things used to be. The dour, frightening Headmaster of Hogwarts and the young, enthusiastic Ancient Runes Professor – two opposite sides of a whole. Or so it had seemed. Their passion had burned frighteningly fast, and had come months – perhaps even years – before their friendship. From tenuous beginnings they’d grown together as a couple, sharing their pasts, their feelings. Their fears. And, she’d hoped, their future. 

Realisation of their love had torn them apart once, shaking the foundations of both their worlds. Now love – or was it the absence of love? – would tear them apart again.

_His emotions have withered,_ she mused, balanced delicately on the cusp of sleep. _They’ve stopped growing. My sunlight wasn’t enough to nourish him, and now he’s faded away from me._ Her brow furrowed as she slipped into the unconsciousness of slumber. 

If he wouldn’t change his ways, she would change hers. Time to take a different road.

She _had_ to leave him.

~&~

She was gone.

Severus sat on the edge of their bed, head in his hands, trying to wrap his suddenly stultified mind around the concept. 

He’d Apparated to Diagon Alley on his once-monthly trip to restock his personal store cupboard, an onerous yet necessary task. When he’d returned, expecting to find Hermione curled up on their chaise-lounge with an old tome or ancient tablet, all he’d found was an envelope propped on the mantelpiece. 

He’d read the letter many times in the last hour, trying to pretend he didn’t understand the blatant meaning of her words. 

_You only notice me when you’re shouting at me,_ she’d said.   
_You belittle me,_ she’d said.   
_You care more for your routines than you do for me,_ she’d said. 

There was a single sheet of parchment with the letter. _I hereby tender my resignation as Professor of Ancient Runes, with immediate effect._ Her signature flourished across the page. He touched it with numb fingers.

Her clothes were gone. Her books were gone. _She_ was gone. Only her scent lingered on the air. Sandalwood teased his nostrils, taunting him, reminding him of what he’d lost. 

He should have seen it coming. He should have realised. He should have stopped her somehow – done more, paid more attention. Loved her like she deserved to be loved. When he’d finally gone to bed last night _(this morning, it was this morning)_ she’d turned away, showing – even in her sleep – a clear signal of her pain.

“Why have I been so blind?” he whispered, head still in his hands. Only in her absence did he remember what she meant to him. His timing was imperfect, flawed, and useless. 

_Hermione. Hermione._

In the early days of their prickly, uncertain courtship, she’d fought for him. Given him her respect, so that she might earn his. But now he treated her no better than his former pupils, and her respect for him had run dry. The seemingly endless stream of her love had dried up. Now he was empty, desiccated, a hollow shell of a man just starting to comprehend the true depth of what he’d lost. 

_Maybe she still feels something for me?_ He clung to the thought, holding onto the memory of her face as she’d called him to bed for the last time. His last look before he’d turned back to his precious papers. _Still some appeal, despite how I’ve disappointed her?_

He picked up the letter again, letting the words brand themselves on his heart. He would find her. Even if it took forever. He’d put this right. 

~&~

Severus looked at the woman sleeping fitfully in the narrow bed. His eyes burned from exhaustion and a terrible, despairing desire. He longed to touch her, longed to smooth the tangled mane of hair away from her face. Longed to feel her warmth against his. Moonlight streamed in through the half-open curtain, illuminating her drawn face.

He’d stood by Hermione’s bed for some time now, watching her. Trying to summon the courage to win her back. 

He’d beg. Anything.

She shifted, body tensing. She mumbled something in her sleep. He couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was clear – disappointment. Sorrow. Loss. Her voice strengthened and she cried out, a single word filled with enough emotion to break his already fragile heart. 

_“Severus…”_

He leaned towards her, his body raw, his soul flayed as his failings were exposed by the sound of his own name. Why had he come here? Why had he _presumed_ to think he could win back her love, when he’d treated her with such contempt?

His mouth flooded with a sour tang, a taste of something he identified as desperation – a feeling that, over the months since she’d left, had taken hold of him. Nearly buried him under its stifling, panicked weight.

“We had something good,” he husked, his voice barely audible. “And I broke it.”

He’d barely breathed the words, but he’d woken her. She went from limp unconsciousness to taut awareness in a bare second, sitting bolt upright against the headboard, pulling the thin blanket up to her chin.

“Severus!” Her voice was high and startled. “H-how did you find me?” She swallowed, the sound clearly audible in the silent room. “What do you want?”

“I want _you!_ ” he moaned, falling to his knees beside the bed. He reached for her with one beseeching hand. 

She leaned away from him, a complex mixture of emotions on her face. 

_“I’m sorry._ Please…” His voice trailed away and he slumped, defeated before he’d even begun.

She regarded him for a long, tense minute. “And what are you sorry for?”

His head flew up, meeting her eyes as she sat in a pallid moonbeam. Had he heard her right? Was she giving him a chance to explain? He’d expected her to hex him six ways to Sunday or, worse still, Disapparate without a word. But she sat there, her breathing shallow and fast, her back straight.

“For everything.” The words poured from him, his stunted emotions shooting out tendrils to catch the feeble rays of her attention. “For my contempt. For every harsh word. Every verbal blow, every time I ignored you.” His voice was hoarse. “It was only when you were gone I realised how bleak my life was without you.”

He seized her small hand between both of his. She let him hold it.

“I don’t deserve you.” He kissed her hand, drowning himself in her fragrance. The spicy scent of sandalwood. He wanted it to burn its way into his brain so he could never forget her. “You’re my light, my conscience. My soul. I’ll do anything if you’ll come back to me, love.”

She stared at him, barely aware that she was holding her breath. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? His respect? His devotion?

“Anything?” she asked slowly, a lump in her throat. “Would you leave Hogwarts? Stop being Headmaster? Give up your _routines_ for me?”

His answer came with no hesitation, no delay. He’d already made up his mind. “In a heartbeat. I’d give it all up just to feel your hair tickle my chest.” His voice was strangled with emotion. “I’d live in a hut if that was what you wanted. I’d walk through fire, wrestle a Blast-Ended Skrewt –”

“Stop,” she commanded. He fell silent, unable to look away from her.

“Do you love me, Severus?”

He laid his flushed cheek against her hand as an answer. The corners of her mouth lifted in a tentative, tremulous smile.

“Love tore us apart,” she whispered. “It will mend us, too.”


End file.
